Adventure Bay

It was raining solidly as we skirted Adventure Bay, but we pulled over to check out the memorial at the spot where Captain Cook landed. Two Pacific Gulls were also pondering how different things might have been (the Dutch, French and Spanish also ‘discovered’ Australia). The garden across the road was a riot of cottage plants and New Holland Honeyeaters were taking advantage of the nectar on offer. Baby birds were demanding their share from the shrubs on the other side of the road.

As we watched the honeyeaters a group of parrots flew into the beach-side trees and pushing our way through the wet undergrowth we came across a group of feasting Green Rosellas. Not sure what the plant is, but it certainly occupied the Rosellas, and we were able to watch for some time and leave them still munching.

The sun came out so we made our way down to the beach, where a sign warned us of nesting Hooded Plovers. There were White-face Heron perched on an abandoned boat and European Starling pecking at flotsam. A fenced off area announced that that section of beach was reserved for the Hooded Plover, but either the plovers had not read the sign, or they didn’t appreciate the gesture.

Another heavy shower sent us to the nearby Bruny Island Berry Farm where we were able to while away the time working through the menu: berry coulis and fresh yoghurt, scones with home-made jam and cream, toasted focaccia filled with local smoked salmon and Tasmanian brie, and mixed berries in champagne jelly. Tasmanian Native Hens scratched around on the sodden lawn. A movement in a blackberry bush turned out to be an introduced Greenfinch.

The Neck, Bruny Island

The rain was as short-lived as it was heavy, and we were able to get the cameras out again at the Neck. On the Isthmus Bay side Silver Gulls, Kelp Gulls and Pied Oystercatchers foraged in the shallows. Superb Fairywrens bustled about among the Fairy Penguin burrows, but the adults were out to sea and the young stayed tucked up in the burrows. A Tasmanian Scrubwren scolded us from its bush beside the boardwalk.

Soldier’s Point

One good tern deserves another. The Great Crested Terns look good in their spring plumage, crests raised to impress the opposite sex.  White-fronted Terns winter here are are about to leave, while Common Terns are just arriving from the northern hemisphere.

The Entrance, NSW

The Little Tern (Sterna albifrons) is Australia’s smallest tern. It is listed as an endangered species in New South Wales. The species is an ecological specialist, needing specific conditions for feeding and breeding and it currently has a population and distribution reduced to a critical level, with poor recovery potential in the face of severe threats. There is a breeding colony on the Central Coast, and though the main nest sites are fenced, it is in a very busy area and most people seemed to treat it as just another seagull.

The Little Tern in NSW is strictly a coastal species, nesting in estuaries or on coastal beaches, and feeding in nearby waters. Most of the nesting sites in NSW are sand-spits, sand islands or beaches within or adjacent to the estuaries of rivers, creeks and coastal lakes. Nesting usually occurs at or near the mouth of the estuary.

Little Terns nest on the ground in the open. The nest is a simple scrape, usually unadorned, although sometimes lined by the birds with shell fragments, tiny pebbles or other material. Nests are typically located on flat or gently sloping ground, on a loose, sandy substrate with abundant surface shell-grit or pebbles, and bare or almost bare of vegetation. The birds appear to select sites with good visibility all around for the sitting bird, and with good camouflage for the mottled eggs and chicks. Nests are usually located close to the water, mostly within 150 m of, and less than 1.5 m above the high water mark. Little Terns tend to avoid vegetated areas and will abandon a traditional nesting site if it becomes too overgrown. However, clumps of vegetation, driftwood and other beach debris are important for
providing shelter and shade for the chicks once they leave the nest.

While currently Little Terns breeding in Australia are classified with those breeding in eastern Asia as subspecies sinensis, it is thought that not only might the Australian birds eventually be recognised as a separate subspecies, but that the genetic differences between Little Terns breeding in south-eastern Australia and those breeding in the Gulf of Carpentaria might see the Australian Little Terns classified as two distinct subspecies.

Little Terns return to NSW during September to November. Nesting begins in October or November and continues through into January or February. Numbers then decline as the birds leave on migration from March to May. The group at The Entrance included both breeding (with yellow bill) and non-breeding birds, and a number of juveniles with buff-brown plumage. I didn’t go near the nesting site, but have heard reports from site monitors that there are babies there.

Kimberley Coast

We spent the morning on a whale watching trip which offered distant views of lesser frigate birds, wilson's storm petrel and brown boobys and close-ups of silver gulls. We came across a mass of fish which were being herded by dolphin, and a mother humpback whale and calf idly resting on the surface of the water. No spy hops, breaching or tail slaps, but I did capture a fin slap and it was great to watch them just relaxing.

Cable Beach

A walk along Cable Beach after breakfast provided some relief from the heat. There were half a dozen different species of wader in groups of twos and threes amongst the rocks, which provided a less than truly comfortable perch to sit and wait for them to come within camera distance.

The stints kept chasing each other, the red-capped plovers darting along the sand chasing something unseen, the pacific golden plovers washined their tit-bits in the rock pools before eating, and the sandplovers went about their foraging in an orderly manner.

Broome Settlement Ponds

We'd heard that the water corporation had closed access to the sewage ponds, and the birds could now only be viewed from behind the eight foot fence - which wasn't much good for photography - but we thought we'd drive out for a look. When we arrived, the gate was open and noone was around so we ambled in and set oursevles up on the edge of the first pond.

There were literally hundreds of plumed whistling ducks, plus good numbers of pacific black duck and grey teal, and australian pelican. There were around twenty white-headed stilt, included three very young babies at the waters edge at our feet, which was probably why the stilt were chasing any black kite that came too close to the ponds.

Whiskered tern flew across the surface of the water, and common sandpiper foraged at the waters edge.

We were just  settling in for a couple of hours of productive photography, when a voice asked "Do you have permission to be in here?" We confessed, and were told we had to seek permission at the water corp office, though it was highly unlikely that permission would be given. Sure enough, all our rational explanations and emotional pleadings counted for little. Access was denied on the grounds of OHS concerns. This is one of my (many) gripes - the misuse of "occupational health and safety". We don't work there so how can OHS be an issue - if you mean public liability then say so. The end result however was that any future birding at the ponds would be done through the chain link fence.

Bolsa Chica

While spring and fall are the busiest times at Bolsa Chica a guy I got talking to at Vista Park said there were Black Skimmers there - so I took the short drive up the PCH to the Huntington Beach wetlands. The skimmers were there, lots of fun to watch and try to capture. A member of the same family as gulls and terns, they are unique in having an uneven bill, the lower part of which has been adapted for trailing through the water to catch fish.

Ocean Baths

I’m not much of a twitcher. I do have a tagging system for photos of new species, and occasionally remember to update my birding list on Facebook, but I don’t keep a list of birds seen. Occasionally in the past I’ve seen a Tweet reporting a new bird somewhere close by, but when I dash over the rarity has always departed for the distant hemisphere from which it has wandered, so I rarely follow up on the information nowdays. But today I‘d dropped a friend off in the East End of Newcastle and was driving home past the Ocean Baths where a Common or Brown Noddy has been spotted over the last couple of days, so I pulled into a parking space.

The Noddy was sitting on the rocks just behind the baths, visible as I walked along the pool deck. I snapped a few shots, and edged closer staying on the pool deck. A gull was snapping at it and it flew up, but came closer to me offering a profile view. The gull followed it and continued to harass it, and after a few minutes the Noddy flew off towards the rocks at the top of Nobby’s beach.

There were at least 25 Sooty Oystercatchers on the rocks, lots of Silver Gulls and Great Crested Terns, and good numbers of Ruddy Turnstones in breeding plumage.

Newcastle Harbour

Common Tern, Sterna hirundo 

The early sun was behind this group of Common Terns feeding on a school of small fish in the harbour, so while they aren’t great images for ID purposes, I kind of like the effect.

The species is a non-breeding migrant to Australia, where it is widespread and fairly common on the eastern coast during summer. The subspecies occurring in Australia is predominantly Sterna hirundo longipennis. Reportedly “In non-breeding plumages, adults differ from those in breeding plumage by: white forehead and lores that merge to dirty white and black-streaked crown and black half-cap on the rear crown, nape and ear-coverts, and with a large black patch in front of the eye; pale grey rump merging into white uppertail-coverts; and a conspicuous black cubital bar and a dusky secondary bar on the upperwing and a dusky wedge on the outer upperwing. The underparts are also white. The bill is black, occasionally with a red tinge at the base, and the legs usually black or black faintly tinged with red.”

Common Terns are recorded in Queensland from September, and usually arrive in NSW from late September to October. They leave again in mid-April.

The number of birds wintering in in NSW are thought to be increasing, with greater numbers in some areas where they were previously scarce or absent. For example, in Sydney Harbour National Park, Common Terns were seldom reported before 1970 but more recent counts are typically of up to 60 birds.

Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (2010). Sterna hirundo in Species Profile and Threats Database, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Canberra. Available from: http://www.environment.gov.au/sprat. Accessed Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:02:05 +1100.

Stockton Sandspit

Godwit

Little Tern (Big Silver Gull)

Another three or four weeks and we will lose our summer visitors. The godwit are starting to colour up into their breeding plumage, and the little tern are dispersing from their breeding sites.

Nobby’s Breakwall

Sooty Tern – photo Allan Richardson

In what may be part two of the Parasitic Jaeger/Arctic Skua story, a sighting of a Sooty Tern was posted to the HBOC list at around midday on Feb 3rd. Later that day others saw this bird, injured, on the rocks on the breakwall. Next morning there were no sightings of a Sooty Tern well or ill. The Parasitic Jaeger, during its breeding season in the Arctic, feeds on small mammals and passerines, but during its winter off the coast of Australia it gets most of its food by attacking gulls and terns and forcing them to disgorge their stomach contents. This bird may have been the victim of such an attack.

The Sooty Tern is a threatened species. It is a pelagic species that forages offshore and birds are usually only observed onshore during breeding season or when they have been forced there by stormy weather. They are seen more often in the tropics, but follow warm currents southward. (The sea of Newcastle is a balmy 23c at the moment.) They follow migrating tuna, feeding off the fish that the tuna drive to the surface.